THE DAY JESUS RETURNED

A Scripture Companion & Bible Study Guide

by John McKissack

How to Use This Study

This guide follows the novel chapter by chapter. Each section includes:

You don't need to have your theology settled to use this study. You just need to be willing to open your Bible and check the text for yourself — which is the whole point of the book you just read.

Part One: Chapters 1–3 — "Where Were You?"

What Happens: Callie Kay wakes up hungover and alone, still carrying two years of anger at God over the deaths of her father and brother. A trumpet sounds over Jerusalem. Christ appears in the clouds. The dead begin rising all over the world. Callie, a livestreamer with millions of followers, starts broadcasting it live — and stumbles onto a verse that terrifies her: the dead in Christ will rise first.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie's anger at God isn't manufactured for the plot — real grief often looks exactly like hers: raw, accusatory, unresolved. Have you ever prayed a version of "Where were You"? What did you do with that prayer afterward?
  2. Read 1 Thessalonians 4:16 slowly, out loud. What does the text actually say happens first? What does it not tell you?
  3. Callie says she hasn't "verified a damn thing" except that she's looking at it with her audience. When was the last time you sat with uncertainty honestly instead of rushing to a tidy answer?
Live It: Write down one honest, unresolved question you have for God. Don't answer it yet. Just write it down.

Part Two: Chapter 4 — The Bedroom

What Happens: Callie breaks down alone, off camera, and prays — furious, unconvinced, still grieving — and gets silence back. She returns to her stream without her performance smile for the first time. Living believers begin to panic: if the dead are rising, why haven't the living changed?

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. God doesn't answer Callie's prayer with a voice from the ceiling. Why do you think the author chose silence here instead of comfort? What would have been lost if God had answered right away?
  2. Callie can't produce her usual performance smile. Is there a "performance" version of your own faith that occasionally cracks? What's underneath it?
  3. The living believers in this chapter assume "changed" should have already happened to them. Where do you think that assumption comes from — the text, or something else?
Live It: Next time you pray, resist the urge to end on a resolved, tidy note. Let it end honestly, even if that means it ends in silence.

Part Three: Chapter 5 — "You Haven't Changed"

What Happens: Callie's brother Caleb — dead two years — appears in her living room, resurrected and whole. Their reunion is cut short when he tells her, gently, "You haven't changed," and walks through her closed apartment door without opening it.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. "You haven't changed" isn't cruel, but it cuts deep. If someone who'd been with Christ looked at your life right now, what do you think they'd notice?
  2. Caleb doesn't explain what he saw or how the change works — he simply says "That's enough." Are you comfortable with mystery in your own faith, or do you need every detail resolved?
  3. Callie forgets she's still live on camera during the most private moment of her life. Has technology ever intruded on a moment that should have stayed private for you?
Live It: Ask someone close to you, honestly: "Have you noticed any real change in me lately — for better or worse?" Let them answer without defending yourself.

Part Four: Chapters 6–7 — The Living Panic

What Happens: Callie's audience spirals into fear: living Christians are still ordinary, unchanged, while the dead are walking through walls. She hits a wall — literally — demanding God change her on the spot. Nothing happens. She turns to Scripture instead of the internet's competing certainties.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie mutes people who are shouting confident, contradictory answers at her. When have you seen — or been part of — a crowd of confident voices drowning out actual careful reading?
  2. "I am not saying the wreck was a lesson... I am saying He did not stop coming toward you while you were coming apart." Read that line again. Does it change how you think about a hard season in your own life?
  3. Callie demands proof and gets none. What's the difference between doubting God and wrestling with God? Which one is she doing?
Live It: Pick one belief you've always assumed the Bible states plainly. Go look up the actual verse this week. Confirm it — or discover it isn't quite what you thought.

Part Five: Chapter 8 — Where the Blink Actually Is

What Happens: Callie stops absorbing everyone else's takes and does the close reading herself. She discovers the "twinkling of an eye" describes the change itself, not the gap between the dead rising and the living being changed. Moments later, the trumpet sounds again.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie's insight only comes after she says "Throw it out. All of it. What we know." Is there a belief you're holding that you inherited rather than studied for yourself?
  2. The chapter shows the danger of "putting the blink in the wrong place" — assuming a detail Scripture doesn't actually state. Can you think of a common assumption about faith or the end times that might be doing the same thing?
  3. Callie isn't trying to win an argument here — she's trying to save her brother. Does your own Bible study usually come from curiosity, fear, love, or some mix of all three?
Live It: Choose one phrase from a familiar verse — something you've heard quoted a hundred times — and look up its actual context this week. What does the surrounding text add that the isolated phrase leaves out?

Part Six: Chapter 9 — The Change Itself

What Happens: The trumpet sounds. Callie is changed in an instant — no visible transition, just a "missing frame." She discovers her new body can pass through solid matter, but her phone cannot. She chooses to bring it anyway, using the door like a person.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. The author deliberately refuses to describe the transformation itself — only the moment right before and right after. Why might that restraint be more honest than trying to describe the indescribable?
  2. Callie's first coherent thought after being transformed isn't about theology — it's "My brother… and my dad." What does that tell you about what actually matters to her, even glorified?
  3. The Samsung can't pass through the door; she can. What in your life right now is like that phone — something you're carrying that might not be able to go where you're going?
Live It: Name one thing in your life you're holding onto tightly that might not "make the trip" with you spiritually. Sit with that honestly, without rushing to fix it.

Part Seven: Chapters 10–12 — Flight, Search, and Still Herself

What Happens: Callie flies through New York, discovers others like her, and accidentally broadcasts her mother's address to 67 million viewers — which becomes the way her audience turns into a search party for her missing family. Amid the chaos, her followers ask if she's "still her," and she proves — through jokes, a bad landing in a bush, and real vulnerability — that she is.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie's audience turns out to be more than numbers — they know her grief, her history, her brother's name. Has an online community ever surprised you by being more real than you expected?
  2. "So you're really still you?" Being made new doesn't erase your personality — it completes it. What part of your personality do you hope survives being made new, rather than being erased by it?
  3. The search party mobilizes for total strangers before it finds Callie's own family. What does that say about how love is supposed to work in the church, biblically?
Live It: Do something small and communal this week — organize, help, or search on behalf of someone else's need before your own gets resolved.

Part Eight: Chapter 13 — The Command to Gather

What Happens: Christ speaks from the clouds, calling His elect to Himself. Michael commands the hosts of heaven to gather them from the four winds. Callie — like countless others around the world — refuses to leave the loved ones who haven't changed, even after hearing the call personally.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie hears the call and still says no — not out of rebellion, but out of love. Do you think love and obedience were ever meant to be in tension, or is something else going on here?
  2. The chapter suggests "gather" is a task requiring real effort — implying love resists separation even under a direct command. Does that change how you picture angels, or how you picture obedience?
  3. If you had been on that lawn, hearing that call, who would you have had trouble leaving behind?
Live It: Pray by name for someone in your life who hasn't "changed" yet spiritually. Be specific.

Part Nine: Chapter 14 — Tears at the Grave

What Happens: Callie returns to her brother's grave and finds an angel waiting for her — sent specifically because her family, like her, refused to leave without finding each other. She learns her family has been searching for her the whole time.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie is changed and still crying. Had you always assumed a glorified body couldn't grieve? Where did that assumption come from — Scripture, or something else?
  2. "It doesn't say there are no tears to wipe away. It says He will wipe away their tears." Sit with that distinction. How does it change how you think about grief you're carrying right now?
  3. The angel doesn't scold Callie for refusing to leave — he simply tells her where to find her family. What does that tell you about how God responds to love that looks like disobedience on the surface?
Live It: Let yourself grieve something this week without rushing to explain it away or "fix" it with a scripture verse too quickly. Sit in it first.

Part Ten: Chapter 15 — Found

What Happens: Callie discovers her family has been searching for her the entire time, at her own apartment. The reunion is physical, wordless at first, and Caleb asks her directly: "How did you change? You were mad at God." Her answer: "He was just waiting for me to understand that me being angry did not stop Him from loving me."

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie's answer to Caleb isn't a sermon — it's one plain sentence. Could you answer the question "how did you come to faith" that simply? Try writing your own one-sentence version.
  2. Her whole family independently refused to leave without each other — a family-wide echo of her own struggle. Does faith in your family tend to move together, or does everyone wrestle alone?
  3. What surprised you most about how this reunion is written — the silence, the physical detail, or what's left unsaid?
Live It: Say the "how did you change" sentence back to yourself, in your own words, about your own life. Write it down where you'll see it again.

Part Eleven: Chapter 16 — Seen

What Happens: Flying toward Jerusalem with her family, Callie joins a gathering of billions around Christ. Through gaps in the multitude, she catches glimpses of Him — until His attention turns, unmistakably, toward her. He speaks her name directly: "I love you, Callie, just the way you are."

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. Callie assumes His attention must be for someone else — "it had to be somebody else." Do you ever assume God's specific, personal love is more available to other people than to you?
  2. "Not the generic kind that includes everybody and therefore technically includes you." What's the difference between believing God loves "the world" and believing God loves you, specifically, by name?
  3. She's still crying in this moment of glory. What does it mean that grace didn't require her to stop being human, or stop feeling, before she could be fully known and fully loved?
Live It: Sit quietly for five minutes and simply let yourself imagine being seen and named, personally, the way Callie is in this chapter. Don't rush past it.

Part Twelve: Chapter 17 — Those Still Below

What Happens: The sixth seal opens. Wrath begins on the earth Callie left behind — earthquakes, darkened skies, the powerful hiding in caves. She watches her own followers, people she knows by name and handle, still down there, asking her for help she cannot give.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. This chapter refuses to give Callie — or the reader — a comforting answer to "what do we do?" Why might that discomfort be the right response, rather than a flaw in the story?
  2. Callie's grief here isn't about herself; it's about people she genuinely came to love through her platform. Who in your own life do you carry a similar weight for?
  3. Is there a place in your own faith where you've let comfort come too quickly, before you'd actually sat with the cost of what you believe?
Live It: This week, actually pray for someone by name who you're not sure shares your faith — not to "fix" them, but simply because you love them.

Part Thirteen: Chapter 18 — What the Phone Couldn't Carry

What Happens: Christ calls His people to Himself one final time. The gathered multitude rises together, "caught up," toward Him. As Callie ascends with her family, she reaches an unseen boundary her phone cannot cross. She lets it fall, says "I love all of you guys" to her audience one last time, and goes on without it.

The Scripture Behind It:

Dig Deeper:

  1. The book ends by staying with the falling phone instead of following Callie through the veil. Why might refusing to show you "the other side" be more honest than trying to describe it?
  2. Callie's entire identity for eighteen chapters was built around documenting everything for an audience. What does it mean that her last act is to genuinely mean the thing her platform always performed — "I love you guys" — right before the camera can't follow her anymore?
  3. What is the "phone" in your own life — something useful, even good, that ultimately can't come with you into what matters most?
Live It: Write your own answer to this question and keep it somewhere you'll find it again: If today were the day, what would you want to have already let go of, and what would you want your very last words to the people watching your life to be?

A Closing Word

This story is one possible reading of a text that has been read many different ways by faithful people for two thousand years. I don't ask you to adopt my timeline. I ask you to do what Callie eventually does in these pages: stop taking anyone else's certainty — including mine — as a substitute for opening the Book yourself.

If this study sent you back to your Bible with new questions, it did exactly what it was built to do.

Come, Lord Jesus.

— John McKissack